


Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Anonymous



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Necromancy, Poor Life Choices, unconventional romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 01:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20282875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Brian is very much madly in love with Patrick Gill. There’s only one problem: Patrick Gill is very,verydead – and there’s a reason that he really should stay that way.





	Kiss Me, Kill Me

Pollós was located on the outskirts of a great, impenetrable forest, and clung tentatively to the outskirts of the map that made up the currently known world. It was a small town; the sort where everybody knew each other in nearly painful detail but didn’t ever quite want to admit it, and was the home of many great and powerful sources of magic – Brian David Gilbert’s reason for journeying as far as he had in the first place. It was said that you could bring your greatest ambitions to fruition in Pollós, if you only studied hard enough – if you picked the right gods to follow and the right books to read.

When Brian first arrived in town, his objective was to learn – to consume as much knowledge of spells and deities as humanly possible, because of course it was, when had it ever not been? Brian craved information like most people craved air.

He had no real ambition to speak of, hoped he’d be able to find one along the way, but also was completely aware that if he never found one he would be completely okay with that too, because there was just so much to learn and see. Flashy spells, subtle spells, gods he’d never even heard of, and so much more. It was intoxicating and absolutely wonderful.

His first few days in town were spent forming connections – speaking to people he met about the best ways to track down the more esoteric magic sources, learning where the libraries and monasteries and temples were – and oh, there were so many of those, too! Pollós was a researcher’s paradise, and within the first week he felt that he could spend his entire life there, and also maybe like he’d finally found the place where he belonged. And for such a small town, the people living in it were surprisingly welcoming – maybe it was a result of the seemingly unending amount of scholars and amateur magicians who came and went as frequently as the wind changed, or maybe it was something about the town itself, a sort of peace and tranquillity in the air, but everybody was just _nice._ Simone, from the largest town bookshop – who had a grin like a joke about to be told and an incredibly infectious laugh – directed him to all the best obscure books, and even went so far as to help him struggle his way back to his rented room when he couldn’t quite manage it himself due to the sheet amount of them in his arms. Karen from the coffeeshop just under his room played rounds of cards with him and pointed him in the direction of much less expensive coffee shops, much to his gratitude, and shortly after that he pretty much retreated into his room to read and read and read endlessly.

As the third week of his stay in Pollós drew to an end, Brian emerged triumphantly from the dragon’s hoarde of books that he had accumulated so far with the intention of taking a break from his research and exploring the town properly – and that’s precisely what he did. He toured the streets, spent time in cafés and novelty stores, and finally – as the sun began to set and the streets grew cool and soft with shadows – took a walk around the gardens that made up the centre of Pollós. And there, he saw him.

He was a majestic thing, a creature of bronze and beauty – his hair hung wildly about his face, glasses present but slightly askew; arms perfectly sculpted. The loose shirt he was wearing hung off his bony frame as he took up a fighting stance against the creature that he was eternally locked in combat with. Sword in hand, he fought against a terrible beast – the likes of which Brian had never dreamed of and never had really wanted to.

Brian looked at the statue and fell in love, which was of course a very simple thing to just say about a situation like that, but didn’t fully capture the full depths of what it was really like. It was like standing on the edge of a waterfall and catching the spray of rainbow mist across your face as you stare into eternity. Like falling and having someone catch you at the last moment, and the surprise isn’t that you didn’t hit the ground but that somebody thought you were worth enough to be saved.

“It’s really something, huh,” said someone just behind him, which broke Brian’s reverie and made him jump. Not super high, but pretty fucking high anyway. The man standing nearby, also regarding the statue with a bit of a sad look in his eyes, was well-built and had a rather striking beard. He caught Brian’s eye and gave him a shrug and a distant smile.

“It’s – it’s _beautiful_,” said Brian, at a loss for any other words. “Is he-?”

“Dead. Yeah.” The man’s gaze turned even more morose. “We miss him every day, but what can you do?”

“He killed that monster, then?” Brian wondered, turning his gaze back onto the statue. The detailing, the highlights, the clear artistry and love put into every element of it.

“Killed it _good_,” the man said. “And it was the death of him.”

Brian hated that monster, then – more than any other person could have, he thought, more than he could have ever imagined himself possibly hating on the behalf of someone he’d never met. He turned back to the man, about to ask another question, but he was leaving already – walking towards the exit of the park, and he looked so incredibly, suddenly upset that Brian decided that it would be far kinder to just leave him be.

Brian looked away, and started towards the statue, intent on finding something that would clue him in to the man’s identity – a plaque or sign or other source – but instead found something else entirely. A woman, standing on the other side of the clearing that housed the statue. There was a look in her eyes that was very hard for him to read – was it fascination? or maybe awe? – and, like Brian, she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from the frozen, eternal spectacle. She shook her head slowly, ran a hand through her hair, and sighed. “Patrick Gill,” she whispered, like she couldn’t help it – so soft that Brian knew that he wasn’t meant to hear it, and yet – and _yet._

And in that one moment, something occurred to Brian, and he knew exactly what he had to do.

* * *

Patrick. Patrick Gill. Pat Gill, Pat Gill. The name was on his lips and in his mind and haunting his dreams near-constantly as he searched the deepest troves and stores of magical lore that he could lay his hands on. What a lovely name, Brian thought – what a perfect name, tripping neatly off his tongue and out of his mouth. It was all too easy to imagine what it would be like to embrace him, to whisper it against his skin, to breathe it into his hair. Perfection. But he couldn’t get too ahead of himself, not yet. Brian could get fixated, sometimes, when he was working on things – could all-too-easily find that his mind would get absorbed in some tiny detail or all-consuming project, but _this _was something different, _this _bordered on obsession, and even though he easily noticed and recognized that, he found that he didn’t care. This was all – the name, the statue, and the spell that he was looking so desperately to find. He had found it once in a dusty, obscure textbook in the back of an equally dusty and obscure bookstore in another town, and it was a very long shot indeed to think that he might be able to find it here too, but it was one that he was very willing to take.

And he did find it, at last, with help in the back of Simone’s bookstore. Identical to the textbook he had seen once in every way – only just a bit more battered. Simone had looked at him at the counter with obvious worry – had asked him if he was sure about this one, really Brian, she had some other books in the back room that’d probably be more up his alley – but he just shook his head, told her no yes he was absolutely sure. He paid, and headed home, and cracked open the book, and started hunting down supplies. _A spell to resurrect a long-dead love. _The wording of the spell itself was simple enough, he could chant Latin like this in his sleep, thank you dead languages major in fantasy college – but the ingredients requires were either expensive, personally detrimental, or some gruesome mixture of both at once. It took him only a few minutes of contemplation to decide that it didn’t matter to him because yes, it was worth it. No cost, material or otherwise, was going to get in his way because when would an opportunity like this ever come again? Quite besides the fact that he just could _not _wait to meet Patrick Gill and pull him back to the land of the living and tell him how much he admired him for his bravery and monster-hunting skill, necromancy was a hard field to break into and this was a great place to start, in his opinion. He had the means, he had the motive, he had the Latin background and the spell scrawled out on a scrap of paper and, very soon, he had the components for the ritual, too. And late that night, he performed it.

It was dreadful; worse than he could have ever imagined. The spell required gold and blood, in such massive quantities that he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to afford food or consciousness by the end of it. Darkness invaded his skull, his blood stream – his bones clicked and knitted themselves inside-out as he chanted the words insistently. Exhaustion permeated his entire existence as he finished and clasped his hands shut over the single lit candle to conclude the spell –

– but nothing happened.

He searched the nearby area – the streets, the houses, the alleyways – for an hour, but Patrick Gill was nowhere to be seen. Desperately, he returned to his ritual circle and performed the spell again, and again – chanting Patrick’s name over and over, offering it up from his lips like the prayer it was. And still, he was nowhere to be seen.

Morning broke, leaving him huddled and the centre of a circle of chalk and salt, covered in blood. He felt hollow, in more ways than one. There was a brief moment where he considered dying. Just leaving himself there, letting himself slip out of existence as quickly and painfully as Patrick no doubt had. But then, he thought of the bearded man at the statue and the look in his eyes and he realized that _oh god no _he needed to know. He _needed to know._

He struggled his way to his feet, and stumbled his way to the gardens, attracting horrified glances from people he passed all the way there. The man was there again, as he had been previously. Today, he was laying flowers at the base of the statue, and Brian’s throat constricted as he realized what he had to tell him. He approached, clearing his throat to alert him to his presence, and the man saw him and made a horrified noise. He was still covered in blood, Brian realized belatedly, but it was too late to stop now, to explain his appearance in full.

“I fucked up,” he said, voice cracking from the strain he had put it under the previous night, “god, I fucked up so bad – but I had to tell you, I had to.”

“Who the hell _are _you?”

“I’m Brian, I – I was here yesterday –” _no wait, _“two days ago, I – oh god.”

“What? What is it?”

Brian trembled, and then explained, in a rush of words. His fixation, his research, the spell, the failure. All of it, laid bare for this man’s sake, and then: “but I failed. I did the spell _four times _and there’s just – _nothing. _He’s not there. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

A beat of silence that seemed to stretch into eternity, and then:

“What the _fuck_ have you done,” said the man, sounding horror-struck.

“I don’t know, I was just trying to –”

“_Griffin _was my brother,” screamed the man, pointing wildly at the statue, at the man, at the beast. “_Patrick Gill was the monster._”

Brian froze, and for a long moment complete incomprehension clouded his brain and froze his body. His head felt like it was full of static, and he could have sworn that ice was pumping through his veins.

“Oh, _shit,_” he said, because it was about all he _could _say.

“Damn _right_ ‘oh shit’,” the man agreed, looking pale and shaky, as shaky as Brian himself felt. “You need to leave.”

...Brian ran. There was nothing else he could do. He ran. Through Pollós, out the gates of the town, into the forest – not even bothering to stop and collect his belongings. The forest was endless, noisy, and dark, and there at the very heart of it all was Patrick, waiting. Teeth like razors, scales like seaglass – claws unlike anything he had ever seen before. He was a majestic thing, and the very sight of him made Brian’s breath catch in his throat. Eternity seemed to be compressed into a single moment.

“You kept me waiting for a while,” said Pat, eyes bright in the vast darkness, teeth curved like a smile.

“I could say the same about you,” Brian panted, breathless and awestruck, and they drew together, two magnets in the darkness – inevitable. Perfectly fitting together. Hand coiled around back, claw digging into hair, faces meeting with impeccable synchronicity. Like standing on the edge of a waterfall and seeing the rainbow spray and marvelling at it, and slipping at the very worst moment, except it turns out to be the very best moment somehow. And then Patrick was kissing him, and then Patrick was killing him, and there is not much more to say about that.

Love, like death, is black as night; and just as endless.

**Author's Note:**

> brian ‘known monsterfucker’ david gilbert
> 
> If you’ve tracked down and read the top 5 stories in Brian’s _~Skyrim book report~_ you probably already have guessed that this story was an AU/retelling of [‘Palla’](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Palla,_volume_1) which is... yeah. not exactly the sort of thing you’d expect me to be writing a rpf au about but inspiration comes from weird places sometimes.
> 
> i know that it’s hard to tell this because i haven’t really carved out much of a niche around here yet but this is a very unusual and weird thing for me to write, in every way possible. regular fic service with normal plot and everything will resume shortly. thank you for your time.


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